UI/UX CASE STUDIES
The Death Father
In the outer banks of Tekon, flanked by a legion of brindled oaks and abounding plumes of fog, is a barrier. Almost invisible to the naked eye, it entwines both the tempestuous will of magic and the mollifying control of its master to veil one world from the other. Its weaving is seamless, forming a force of energy that contains just as many secrets as it does threads.
What onlookers would see, if anyone would be so deep in the forest, is a lone Tekonese soldier staring intently at a heap of dilapidated trees. Wrangled trunks and coarse, woody debris are strewn over the trail, now hardened with accustomed tread. Charred, snake-like roots reach in all directions like a drowning man trying to break the surface. Villagers made many attempts to deter from this part of the forest, through decapitation or burning or otherwise, but they could not stop guilt-wrecked survivors from making the trip.
​
Feng stands before the barrier, trying to catch the barely there gleam that provides a fleeting glimpse of what lies beyond. A row of orchids bathed in the moon’s pallid gleam. An array of gardening utensils scattered on the plush, umber path. And some distance away, a small wooden hut.
The back of his neck prickles. He takes a deep, hollow breath and enters, vanishing into the other side like a wisp of smoke.
A gust blows through the garden, catching the end of Feng’s frayed scarf. Washed over by a dizzying wave, his vision blurs, then straightens. Patches of crimson flowers clamour to his feet as he walks the winding path. Gold and amber-leaved trees droop as if bowing their heads in welcome. The almost-too-loud hum of the forest reverberates louder with every step, an undertone to the high-pitched crickets that Feng swears say “Come in, come in.”
His resolve falters with every ascending step up the hut, but it remains intact long enough for him to give a ginger knock on the door. Silence. A knock once more, stronger this time. Still no answer. He does not even consider trying the handle, which seems to have no lock, before taking a backwards pace. He had made his attempt. It is not him who deigns retribution, but fate that denies him of it.
​
He turns, gasping sharply as he comes face to face with the forest. Crimson petals and golden leaves form a great wall that surrounds him. It stands erect and immovable, like a proud lioness. Feng holds up a quivering hand.
Snap snap! Gruesome teeth emerge from the orchids, biting at his calloused fingers. Thorny vines whip out from the wall and hold his wrist in their acrid grasp. The whine of insects turns into a heart-dropping shriek. Come in, come in, come in!
Feng bangs on the door with his free hand, shaking the entire infrastructure. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
An orchid snaps the hem of his scarf, another one clinging to his hair, a third finding his leg. A rivulet of crimson blood drips on crimson petals.
He gives the knob a great jerk in both directions, but it’s stuck as if it was a piece of decoration. “Please!”
​
Come in, come in, comeincomeincomeincomein!
“Let me in!” Feng tears away from the forest, throwing his entire body weight on the door. It rattles but remains shut. Again. Again. AGAIN!
Finally, it flings open pleasantly like a child opening her arms. He falls through the entrance, scarf pulling taut around his neck before giving free. It vanishes into the sea of red and gold as the flowers and trees retreat as hurriedly as they struck Feng. The door slams shut.
Inside is silent save for the low creak of a chair from another room. The hut, which appeared much smaller from the outside, is furnished with a simple wooden table flanked by two armchairs. Candles, incense burners, and trinkets occupy the rest of the floor.
The creaking stops. A figure emerges from the hallway. She walks purposefully, but slowed by the weight of her colourful shawls.
When she speaks, her voice is resounding and clear. “Welcome, Yuinha.”
Feng tenses at the word. Lost one. He hadn’t heard his mother tongue since childhood.
“I’m looking for the Death Father,” he says, still on his knees. He tries to catch his breath but the heady scent of incense is stifling.
She chuckles, her shawls shaking up and down. “My, is that what they’re calling me these days? Just call me Peacebringer. I’ve been hoping that one would stick.”
“My apologies, I was under the impression that the Peacebringer was an old man.”
“Old man? Do I look like an old man to you?” She steps into the light of a particularly large candle and parts her shawls. Silver hair falls over her shoulders. Her child-like features are soft and warm as she laughs. Her lips curve in a slight smile, but her eyes are as sharp as the edge of a master blade. And most startling of all, she feels familiar. Feng thinks he knows her name for a moment, but the thought passes. “Sit, we have much to discuss.”
Feng tosses a cautionary glance back at the door, touching his hand where he’d been bit. His fingers come away bloody.
Her voice tinges with impatience but remains affable. “Apologies for the flowers. They are rather boisterous by nature, but are further roused when sensing fear or hesitation.”
The Peacebringer waves Feng to the seat once more as she reclines in the armchair opposite.
“Many like you have come by lately. Soldiers haunted by the things they’ve seen. By the acts they’ve committed. Lost souls. Would it be impertinent of me to assume you are the same?”
To his silence, she holds out both arms over the table. Feng’s eyes glaze over her expression, which tells him to take her hands, and he does.
“Tell me, what is your name?” she asks.
He takes a moment to remember. “Feng Chi. It was my late grandfather’s name.”
The Peacebringer squeezes.
“I haven’t heard many stories about the war. Sometimes my flowers catch wisps of a tale and attempt to relay it, but I have no interest in hearing such somber details. But your name,” she grip tightens, “I cannot seem to escape. A hero, the orchids called you. A legend who single-handedly won Tekon the war.”
Feng nods grimly.
“What brings a war hero here? What horrors eat you away so terribly that you wish to die?”
“I hear you take peoples’ memories as a part of the ritual,” Feng says. “Take them, and you will see.”
“As you wish.”
The Peacebringer nods, squeezing Feng’s now trembling fingers once more. She pulls tendrils of memories from the recesses of his mind, one delicate thread after another.
“You know perfectly well where he is, dammit!” Feng snarled, striking the boy with another fist. “You of all people should know!”
The child convulsed in misery, trying to say something but only managing a warbled cry. He struggled in his chair but the ropes only seemed to pull tighter. Under a single fluorescent lamp, the kid’s pale skin glowed like a ghost.
“Listen, boy, Lan Shui is a terrible man. His greed and manipulation are the reason my country toiled in poverty for years. If I capture him, our countries’ conflicts will all be resolved.”
“You’re lying,” the child managed finally, barely audible.
“I just want our nations to be at peace. Don’t you want that too? Huh? Don’t you?”
“You’re going to kill my dad,” he cried. “Please don’t kill Dad.”
The memory, that Feng had tried tirelessly to suppress, feels all too clear. A sinking feeling grips his stomach.
The next evening. The soft glow of twilight swept through the city, staining the wharf in its blood red gleam.
Feng stared at the sack as it fought for its life, the child inside it lashing up and down. He tossed two bags after it, one filled with clothes and the other with toys. He might have fetched a pretty penny for them, but was unequipped to answer the question of how an impoverished Tekonese soldier even acquired such artisanal goods. It was a shame to let go of them, but Feng needed to sell the story of Lan Shui’s runaway son.
The sack descended slowly. Even as it vanished under the water’s scummed surface, it wiggled and writhed until its final bubble broke the waves. It would have certainly been easier to kill the kid first, but Feng was above murdering innocent people. Yes, he simply lets the sea claim them.
Feng kicked a small red pendant and watched the last of the boy’s belongings skip across the ocean. He would have to resume his search for Beiling’s Warmonger the next day, for this life was taken in vain too. He sighed, the familiar, heavy stench of bird waste filling his nose.
“Feng,” a voice called.
Jing, a soldier he trained with, emerged from a debris-choked alley. Her violet gaze darted from his eyes to the ocean to his eyes again. He tried to face her with a disengaged expression of his own, but the twitch of his hand gave the lie to his confidence.
A sinking feeling. Feng prays for the guilt to dissolve, but it does not relent.
A bullet grazed the side of Feng’s cheek. It shattered the window behind him, sending alarms through the Warmonger’s underground hideout.
Feng leaped forward and, in the shooter’s moment of recoil, plunged his sword through his stomach. Lan Shui’s sweaty face froze in its grisly scowl, eyes still aglow with murderous intent as he fell.
Feng didn’t have the presence of mind to wait before checking his pulse. As he reached out, Lan swung up one last time, seizing Feng in a chokehold. They struggled, arm in trembling arm until Feng’s vision went fuzzy. The Warmonger gave a final squeeze before the last of his life escaped him. His fists went still, then slack.
Feng threw the body across the room onto the table. Documents and ink flew into the air like startled birds. They fell at Feng’s feet like lifeless prey.
He shoved his face in his hands, releasing his nerves and tension and ecstasy in one great yell.
“So you finally found him,” Jing’s familiar but perturbing voice called from the doorway. She approached him with a heavy gaze.
Feng sprang to his feet.
“Yes, I did,” his heart thrummed again with renewed anxiety, “I killed Beiling’s leader. Now the war has to stop.”
“No, Feng. It is you who needs to stop. How many innocent lives did you take to get the information you needed? Did you have to kill a child?”
“Don’t patronize me, Jing,” Feng spat. “I’ve just ended the war. I had the guts to do what it took.”
“Do you know what the generals will do if they found out about this?”
“There’s nothing for them to find out. I did nothing wrong.”
“There’s already word of a rogue soldier. People think he’s killing civilians and stealing their valuables. General Wang even went to investigate the wharf herself last night.”
“You’re going to turn me in, aren’t you?” Feng’s voice was low, quivering with the depth of his rage. Or perhaps fear.
A dozen heavy footfalls filled the hallway. Weiyan, a general Feng recognized, burst through the door with her men. Her umber gaze scanned the room. She grinned when she realized.
“You caught him,” she gasped. “You caught Lan Shui.”
The skin around Feng’s mouth clammed up. He swallowed a dry breath and nodded stiffly.
Weiyan waved for her men. Fifteen Tekonese soldiers, all larger and swifter than Feng, marched in perfect formation across the room. They were a cage to him.
“Search the area and bring the body to General Wang,” she ordered.
They worked in flawless unison, like the cogs of a well-oiled machine.
“And you,” Weiyan turned to Feng, “you must come with me. Tell me exactly how you found and defeated Beiling’s Warmonger.”
He gave another listless nod.
“What is your name, war hero?” she asked as she led him out.
Feng didn’t have the answer in him.
“Feng,” Jing called after them, “Feng Chi.”
Feng loses feeling in his limbs, growing numb to every sensation apart from the heart-stopping misery eating away at his soul. The Peacebringer remains still, holding his hands just tightly enough that he would struggle to pull away.
The night after the victory. Feng slammed the bottle on the table, red-faced, laughing with the other soldiers. Jing and Weiyan shouldered open the tavern door and sat themselves across from him. They tossed their jackets down. Clipped to them are their badges, two ostentatious medallions glinting under the pallid light.
“Chi,” Weiyan beamed, “if you would grant me the honour, I’d like to treat our war hero to drinks tonight.”
​
He wants to beg the Peacebringer to stop, throw himself on the ground and beg for mercy if that’s what it takes, but his limbs do not find action and the words do not surface.
Feng parted from his comrades, who had linked arms and started singing the national anthem. They ambled down the sidewalk, too inebriated to notice he’d separated himself. The spring Tekon breeze carried their jumbled melodies to nearby stalls, whose owners scowled in silent exasperation.
Feng made a beeline for another group where his superiors were persuing a display of Tekonese jewelry. His wave caught the attention of a strong middle-aged woman. She crossed the street with a barely suppressed drunken wobble.
“General Wang, I heard you were looking for the rogue soldier,” Feng outstretched his slender fingers, revealing a gold disc marked ‘Jing Li’.
General Wang turned it over in her hands. It was genuine. She flashed Feng a challenging look, sobriety surfacing with realization.
“I found it by the wharf,” his voice broke.
Feng watched the General’s expression closely. She inspected it once more, trying to find inauthenticity, before pocketing the pilfered badge.
“Thank you, Chi. I’ll speak to her.”
The Peacebringer pulls away as if he is suddenly too hot to touch. The memories rush into his mind all at once like a rubber band snapping back. He recoils in his seat, dazed by a flash of warbled pictures and words and emotions.
The barrel of Lan Shui’s gun pointed at Feng’s head.
A twisted display of all the people Feng killed.
Jing’s corpse laying among them.
Jutting from her chest, the sword he trounced Lan with.
Jing smiling a hollow, toothless smile.
Gripping his chest, Feng gasps for air. The Peacebringer leans over him, holding an incense burner to his nose.
“So that is the truth behind the great Feng Chi’s achievements,” she says.
“I’m not proud of them,” Feng mutters, “I’m not proud of myself.”
The Peacebringer sits on the table, waving the incense around her like a barrier. The tendrils of smoke linger in a Shenlia, the Tekonese symbol for protection.
Feng’s humourless chuckle comes out as a dry wheeze. “Do you fear that I’ll kill you too, Peacebringer?”
“No, it is not me who needs protecting,” she says solemnly. “I pray for what may become of you in the afterlife.”
“The afterlife? I don’t believe in such things,” Feng waves the smoke away. “I came here for one thing only.”
“Yes, but do you think it wise for the legendary Feng Chi to die like this?”
“What are you getting at?”
“I’m suggesting you confess your crimes.”
“No! They’ll surely execute me. But I can’t bear the guilt any longer. I need to die a hero,” he begs, eyes haunted and rheumy with tears. “You must take my life and never tell a soul.”
“People will surely go scouring for your body, then the truth,” the Peacebringer chides. “And the truth always has its way of getting out.”
“You cannot tell!” he yells, drawing his pocket knife with an instinct too familiar. He presses it against the Peacebringer’s neck, but it does not pierce her skin.
“Child…”
“Don’t patronize me with your false honour, Peacebringer. Who are you to judge my sins? What do you know of an honourable death?”
She studies Feng with an askance expression.
“I hold no holy claim or sinless slate, Yuinha. I simply let those who believe in the honour to come to me for help. This ritual only has meaning if you think it does. Belief is all in one’s head, as is all the guilt and fear and sorrow.”
Feng grips his blade tighter, white knuckles quivering.
“It’s all in my head, that’s right. Why can’t you simply take these memories and let me live? Why must death come with peace, why not life?” he spits, words dripping in venom.
“And where is the honour in that?”
“I care not about honour, Peacebringer.”
She touches her palm to his fist, softly, as if afraid she would break him. When she speaks, her tone is steeped in sorrow.
“Then why did you come all this way? We must balance death, life, sin, and punishment at a delicate equilibrium. I can give you the peace you desire, but I will not take your memories. You must take your guilt to the grave.”
The Peacebringer studies Feng’s face, and for the first time, wonders what may race through his mind.
Finally, he lowers his blade. “I truly cannot bear it any longer. I am hailed as a hero but I cannot escape the shadows of what I’ve done. I can’t go on knowing children will pass my erroneous legends. Please.”
​
She clasps his hands, that are still as though he was already dead, and nods.
“Fear not Yuinha, for every man who stands atop a great peak casts a shadow. Not all heroes were made to be remembered. Some legends are born to die.”
After
Feng’s senseless body lies on the floor of the Peacebringer’s decrepit hut, unmoving, but still alive. Just barely. She drapes one of her shawls over him as an act of protection...or possession.
With a swift wave, she emanates just enough life force for him to speak.
“What is your name?” she asks.
“Feng Yu Chi,” his voice sounds hollow, as though he is speaking from the other side of a great canyon.
“Tell me about your past.”
“Born and raised in Yuguo, Tekon. Lived with my single mother until I enlisted for war at eighteen.”
“Did you perform well in training?”
“Exceptionally. Better than all the other rookies. But they refused to promote me. Thought I had anger problems. They promoted Weiyan instead.”
“Did you feel bitter about that?”
His answer came after a pause. “Yes.”
“Did you hunt down Lan Shui so fervently because you wanted to prove yourself worthy?”
“No. ...Partially.” Another pause. “I heard General Wang discussing a large payout to anyone who could pinpoint the whereabouts of a Beiling general. I wanted to guarantee the payout with a bigger catch.”
The Peacebringer leans in as Feng’s voice softens, straining to hear the last of his sentence. She sends another surge of energy through his head.
“Why did you need the money so desperately?”
“For my mother.”
She waits for him to elaborate, but he does not.
“Did you want your mother to live an easier life?”
“I wanted…” Feng clams his mouth shut. His lips twitch and pucker like he’s trying not to vomit.
She jabs his side, a tracery of hot pain jolting him. A breathy hiss escapes his teeth.
“I wanted—needed to buy back her house...that I lost from gambling. And the loan sharks...trying to hunt me down.”
“Did your poor mother know about any of this?”
Feng’s body tenses and shakes. He bites his lip shut.
“Even at the brink of death, you continue to resist me,” she shakes her head. “If I tell you a truth about me, will you trade the truth about your past?”
She pretends his silence is agreement. “Good. I’m afraid I’m not as virtuous as I led you to believe. Magic is a powerful, limitless thing, you see. I’ve spent the better years of my life mastering it, but I cannot seem to find an evasion to death. Sin and punishment...their equilibrium is a precarious line to tread and I’m afraid I’ve sinned more than my life’s worth of punishment.”
The Peacebringer looks to the body for a response that she knows she will not get.
“I’m very much like you, always pushing boundaries and expectations, unafraid to sacrifice a life or two...thousand to achieve the results I desire,” she shakes her head. “I suppose you could call me a hypocrite. I upbraided you with lessons I continue to reject. But I have too much blood on my hands, Feng. The afterlife will surely be a bitter eternity for me.
“So in the last years of my mortal life, I started a rumour. In the outer banks of Tekon, flanked by a legion of brindled oaks and abounding plumes of fog, lives an old man who can bring the sick and elderly to a tranquil afterlife. And that I did, of course, but their life forces were not enough for me to feed on. I needed healthier bodies, ones that would not expire by the next season. Thus, I offered to relieve survivors, refugees, and guilt-ridden soldiers of their horrific memories...before killing them, of course. They made excellent vessels, and as I switched from body to body, man to woman, woman to child, the name Death Father became obsolete.
“That’s my story. Unfortunately, it is not as interesting as yours, but I thank you for taking the time to listen.”
Feng is quiet still, his breaths growing more spread and laboured.
“In fact, this is quite a curious coincidence. Do you want to know who my last visitor was?” The Peacebringer starts, turning to face the body. She stares at it with a look that is not quite regret.
“It was your comrade who you framed, Jing Li. She was still dressed in jail attire. Face smeared with dirt, hands bloody. She refused to tell me about her woes. And her mind, though brilliant, was too obstructed with trauma. I couldn’t coax any significant memories. But I performed my ritual all the same and gladly took her healthy vessel.”
The Peacebringer extends her hand and the door swings open gleefully. A single orchid, baring the Feng’s scarf in its gruesome fangs, stretches towards her. It flecks its jaws, dropping the tattered fabric in her palm. It withdraws its teeth, just a flower once more.
“I know you were concerned I’d expose your crimes, but worry not,” she folds the scarf around Feng’s neck, just as he had worn it upon entry. “I wouldn’t want Tekon’s military coming after me. That would simply be troublesome.”
She takes his hands again, and this time pours all her memories, emotions, and thoughts into his body. It fills him quickly and wholly, sweet vigour coursing through his veins.
Then resistance. The last of Feng’s consciousness latches onto his mortal being.
“Do not be fearful, lost one. Death is a peaceful thing. Death is simply another journey.”
The Peacebringer digs her talon-like nails into him and squeezes out the last of his life. Finally, it fizzles away like a candle snuffed.
“Death...is just infinity closing in.”
Jing’s abandoned vessel falls, and the body that is no longer Feng’s rises once more.